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Heyo! I had a quick question about what happens when you use pre-release builds during and past the release they're intended for. Some clarification;

Hypothetically, I'm running a daily-live build of Ubuntu. Right now, that puts me I'm the release path of 17.10 (Artful Aardvark). If I were to run this, up to date, beyond the release of 17.10, I could use sudo do-release-upgrade (IIRC) to update/upgrade my system to that release, changing my update and support cycle to that of 17.10.

What would be the outcome if I just maintained the path I was on? Using just sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade to update my system. Would I hypothetically be able to continue using a daily-live build? Would it eventually put me on track for the next release after, in this case, 18.04? Meaning at that point sudo do-release-upgrade will launch me into 18.04? Or will this update and build path be cut off when its intended release candidate 17.10 is pushed?

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    As soon as you install the updates available after the official release it should be the same as installing that same release.
    – user692175
    Sep 6, 2017 at 23:24
  • Ah, but would I be on the same update path? Say, would I still keep getting daily-live updates, or would I be thrown into the 17.10 track? As an example, if I updated my 16.04 install, I'd still be using 16.04, unless I did sudo do-release-upgrade, which would upgrade my system to the current release. Does daily-live exhibit similar behavior? (Thanks for the comment, by the way.)
    – user639089
    Sep 6, 2017 at 23:37
  • As I said it's the same. A "release" represents a point in time where most of the packages are frozen in a given version (Firefox and Chromium are exceptions), only receiving security updates if needed. A few other distros use a different model, rolling release, which continuously updates (less stable).
    – user692175
    Sep 6, 2017 at 23:43
  • Just looking at your sources.list will answer the question...
    – fkraiem
    Sep 6, 2017 at 23:59
  • You don't seem to be understanding my question. I wouldn't be using 17.10, I'd be using a daily-live build. I won't be upgrading it, I'll be updating it. My question, once again, is if I continue to update this same system, will I be able to maintain this further than just the release it's intended for. In other words, can I use it throughout 17.10, or even 18.04 in the way I am now?
    – user639089
    Sep 7, 2017 at 0:01

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Unlike Debian, Ubuntu does not have a rolling, next-release repository. There's nothing comparable to testing or sid. Until release, the repositories of that release get updated, and the contents of the daily build are updated to reflect that. Post-release, the main repository is frozen (updates for that version go to <release>-security, <release>-updates, <release>-proposed, etc.).

You may start from a daily build, but that just means you're using whichever version's repository that daily build used. After the installation, all upgrades are a matter of the repositories used. Post-release, the daily builds are updated to use the next release's repositories. And your installed Ubuntu isn't.

So: until release, running apt update/apt upgrade should mostly keep you in sync with the daily builds, but post-release, that won't be true.

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